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by Pete Brennan Last Fall, I had the opportunity to be part of a very inspirational experience in my Adventure/Challenge Education Methods class, at Northeastern. On this day, two of my classmates, Dallas Shelton and Chris Chandleer, accepted what they perceived, according to their facial expressions, a rather disconcerting challenge to climb the Dangle Duo. The Dangle Duo is nothing less than a rope ladder made for a giant; however, instead of rope, it is constructed of steel cable, clamps, and 4x4 boards. The distance between the rungs of this ladder is about four or five feet. The rungs get progressively further apart the higher you climb. The Dangle Duo, like a suspended rope ladder, does not remain stable, but sways back and forth for the climbers. Dallas suffers from Muscular Atrophy, a condition requiring that he wear leg braces to walk. Chris has an acute fear of heights. What made witnessing this event so inspiring was that climbing the Dangle Duo for the first time is really a challenge for just about anyone, let alone persons with disabilities. When I climbed, I froze in absolute fear for about sixty seconds upon looking down from the fourth rung of this giant-sized ladder, despite having a very experienced climbing partner who had a love for new challenges. Chris Chandler has a pronounced fear-of-heights psychosis, and Dallas, by his own account, has climbed little more than stairs in over twenty years. The class really wondered how high this pair could climb. From my perspective, the climbers basically "fed" off one another, each wanting to show the other the challenge could be met. With every upward advance, both climbers challenged, encouraged, and then demonstrated to one another what might have seemed completely impossible only moments before. So focused were their efforts, it is questionable whether either of them much noticed the calls of encouragement from their belay teams twenty-five feet below. As it turns out, through much sweat and determination, they reached the top and joyfully high-fived each other. Even if you knew nothing of what made this challenge formidable for these guys, had you been present, you too, would have sensed their feelings of pure accomplishment upon returning to solid ground. Our entire class, feeling as though we were up there with them, received our own sense of satisfaction through Dallas and Chris' climb. I know my classmates have shared with others what we witnessed this day in class. In the end, however, the true accomplishment was in Chris and Dallas' simple decision to try. For me, the experience would have lost nothing had they failed to even get off the ground. This class has shed new light on the fact each of us has issues we struggle with daily. Now it is a little easier for me to cope with my own struggles. Though I cannot know what Dallas feels when he thinks about how life might be different without Muscular Atrophy, as a claustrophobic, it is easy for me to relate to Chris' fear of heights. I grow very anxious and sometimes nauseous in tight spaces. About a week later, the memory of this courageous climb helped me cope with a bout of claustrophobic tension. Somehow, the thought of Dallas and Chris struggling and succeeding helped calm my irrational fear. Not that we're 'whole' now. Chris still struggles with vertigo, I'm
still claustrophobic, and Dallas most certainly still wears his leg braces,
but maybe we've all learned something about making it through difficult
moments we will all have. I heard Tony Calibrese, a pioneer for Adventure
Education in Illinois, say, "There is a big difference between the foolhardy
adventurer and the one who really understands the purpose of adventure
based education." Each of us had struggles. Gaining a clear grasp of this
truth is one way of coming to better help others and ourselves. The experience
described above is a case in point and a great example of the 'essence
and purpose of adventure education.' It was a moment in my life I will
never forget. I wish you could have been there. It was awesome!
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